


We Will Never Be Here Again

by terrible_titles



Series: The Hellfires [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: And have some things I'm working out with this show, Angst, Existential Crisis, Hurt Aziraphale (Good Omens), Hurt Crowley, Hurt/Comfort, I bet you can't tell I grew up suuuuuper religious, It's Aziraphale's turn to have some doubts, M/M, Philosophy, Religious Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-12 03:58:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19939852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terrible_titles/pseuds/terrible_titles
Summary: God seems to be playing a game they can't win.Aziraphale's lost, Crowley's trying, and God's Plan remains pretty ineffable.





	We Will Never Be Here Again

**Author's Note:**

> This can be read as a standalone but will probably make a bit more sense if you read the first of The Hellfires series.

“I cannot kill a child, Crowley.” _But you can._

I am a monster, Aziraphale realized, bolting upright from his book. Crowley napped on the couch, as usual, the lines in his face smoothed in rest.

There were a lot of things Aziraphale had compartmentalized since the Hellfires. He had to, if he were going to move on from there, be a presence that Crowley could recognize. But it was moments like these where his entire life was forced through a re-evaluation suddenly, triggered by some errant line of dialogue that he couldn’t even recall, that he had to acknowledge the Hellfires had, in fact, changed him.

It wasn’t as if he didn’t know asking Crowley to kill a child for him was wrong when he did it; he just thought, all right, if God always has these ineffable plans which cause death and destruction in the name of some nebulous Holy concept, then surely so can I. 

But it wasn’t a nebulous Holy concept, after all; it was just a base and carnal desire that wanted a child murdered somewhere outside of his watch so that he could go on forever here on Earth with desserts and Crowley and minimal guilt. 

That’s what he’d always done with Crowley, though, wasn’t it? Turn a blind eye to the demon’s worse instincts so that he could enjoy the pleasures of his company? 

And Adam. Adam Young, a small child he’d held hands with, coaxing strength and light into his soul. He remembered the warmth from the human, the soft, new flesh, so fragile. He remembered aiming a ridiculous gun at the child’s heart and pulling the trigger. The boy, so trusting. 

“You’re acting weird again,” came Crowley’s voice, and Aziraphale opened his eyes to find two yellow ones staring at him from the plush burgundy couch. “True I don’t know much about reading, but I think you have to keep your eyes open.” The tone was light, but Crowley’s face was lined again with concern. 

Aziraphale breathed a soft sigh. It felt nice, the air coursing through his body. Something distinct about it, these days. He looked down at his book and read the line again: _The soul exists partly in eternity and partly in time._

“I’m sorry, dear,” he murmured, closing the book and setting it aside. “Just a bit lost in thought, I’m afraid.” 

“Right,” Crowley said, swinging his legs around in one graceful move to sit upright. “Lots to think about. I’ll leave you to it.” 

Aziraphale meant to say, “Wait,” or “You don’t need to leave,” or something equally trite, but he found himself quite at a loss for words as he watched the lanky demon move out of the room. 

*

Crowley was observant by nature. Most people mistook that for a leering sort of voyeurism, and most people were right, most of the time. But not always. 

It wasn’t as if he believed Aziraphale would be the same angel after the Hellfires, but he wished that perhaps the angel would tell him _who_ he was now, instead of playing the long game. Crowley didn’t know how to push the matter either, no matter how hard he cared. He could push a few buttons, could get the angel riled up, but to dredge up a burgeoning relationship he wanted so long and re-evaluate it entirely in light of this new information was more than Crowley could bear. 

And Crowley was selfish. There’s always that. 

They might have continued like that, if it were up to Aziraphale. 

But Crowley was selfish, and also a bit fickle. 

*

“Okay, Angel, tell me which baby animal is dying today.” 

Aziraphale’s eyes popped open to find Crowley upright, staring intently at him from the end of the bed. He hadn’t even realized the demon was in the bedroom, couldn’t remember which book he had supposedly been reading. 

“Crowley, I—”

“Spare me. I’ve been letting you find your pace here for weeks, but I think we’ve had our fun taking it slow, yeah? So fill me in. Tell me what you’re seeing. You know I’ve been there, too, right? I’ve seen it all. Don’t think you’re sparing me or any nonsense.”

Aziraphale shut the book in his lap and gazed down upon it, trying to make out the gold lettering on the soft blue cover. Still nothing. And he realized Crowley deserved a better answer than that. 

The demon’s yellow eyes were difficult to stare at for very long. Aziraphale had always thought so. But he realized Crowley was making an effort, here, and he very much wanted to make an effort as well. 

“It’s different,” he managed finally, the words forming a knot in his throat. “I know you think it’s not, but it is. When you Fell, you already questioned.”

“I hate to break it to you, but you’ve been questioning things for a long time, too. Just, perhaps not so loudly.”

Aziraphale pursed his lips, clicked his tongue, a number of nervous human gestures that had become an appalling habit over the years. “Well, I—” He stopped and tried to lift his eyes to gaze at Crowley now. He felt his face soften from the intensity of Crowley’s gaze, always so alert to him and him alone. “I have not been, well, very good, as it were.” And he closed his eyes. 

“Angel. You haven’t Fallen. Not really. We don’t know what you are, but it can’t be all that bad, can it, if you haven’t sauntered down to my lot yet?”

“Oh, Crowley. You do make things rather impossible to say.” 

Crowley held up his hands. “Fine, fine. I’ll be quiet. Look at me, shutting up now.” And he mimed zipping his lips closed. He legs were folded in an awkward half-kneel beneath him and Aziraphale found himself staring at the sharp, jagged edge of his knee. 

“You know, dear,” he began, tracing the line of the wrinkled jeans with his eye, “I can’t stop thinking about how—well, how awful I’ve been. To you.” He looked up, felt his vision waver for a second.

“That’s what you saw in the Hellfires?” Crowley said. 

“No. No—not really. Not exactly.” He heaved a sigh and pushed up on the bed, reaching across the gap for the demon’s hands. “Please, Crowley, can we not do this just right now?” He pressed his lips to the long, thin fingers, unable to disguise the trembling in his own hands. “Soon, though,” he promised. 

*

Anathema Device stayed in Tadfield with Newton Pulsifer and then married him, because she might as well. There were no predictions now to say that she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, and she found that was as sinfully delightful as Newt’s wide eyes, blown pupils, and stunned expression when she proposed. (A certain degree of latitude must be imagined with the idea of a proposal, since Anathema wasn’t so keen on the one-knee light-of-my-life speeches. It was rather more of a business proposal discussed over morning coffee but Newt was no less shocked or delighted for it.)

The wedding was beautiful. Newt cried. Shadwell cried. Madame Tracy put on her best tremulous smile. Anathema herself even got a bit misty-eyed at some point during the reception and turned away until she had composed herself. 

Aziraphale cried too, after he had congratulated the bride and groom and turned back to his champagne, but it was a quiet kind of crying, tears silent on his cheeks, and it made Crowley deeply uncomfortable. He came up behind the angel and placed a hand on his shoulder and murmured something that made Aziraphale sniff and buck up. 

“I apologize, dear, you know how weddings get to me,” he said, turning to Crowley as he put away his handkerchief. “I should—you know—do a blessing, or—” He stopped, eyes unfocused as he stared past Crowley’s shoulder. Crowley looked behind him, but nothing was there, other than Adam’s weird dog digging holes in the garden. Aziraphale smiled faintly and shook away the reverie. “Maybe I shouldn’t, though. Maybe it would be better if I didn’t—interfere, as it were?”

“Are you asking _me_ , Angel?” Crowley asked. 

“Of course I’m—” Aziraphale fidgeted with his hands. “Of course I don’t know. We’re retired, then, aren’t we? Perhaps it’s best if I just… leave it alone.” The angel’s wide eyes took in the happy couple, chatting away to Shadwell and Tracy. 

“Perhaps,” Crowley agreed, because he thought he probably wouldn’t want to be blessed by an angel having an identity crisis. And they’d made it okay so far, anyway. He moved to stand at the angel’s side and cast a sidelong look back to Aziraphale, who seemed to be tearing up again. “Now?” he asked, very softly. 

Aziraphale shook his head. Crowley conjured up another handkerchief and handed it over. Anathema looked over to the pair and frowned. 

Later, as Newt was waiting patiently in the car, she found Crowley. “Thanks for coming,” she said, and didn’t let him answer before she launched into the rest of it. “Listen, I know I said Aziraphale’s aura was everywhere, but it’s—well, not exactly missing now, but quite faint.” She shrugged. “Flickering. Like it’s unsure.” 

Crowley felt his eyebrows pinch over his glasses as he stared at her. He hadn’t really noticed, but he had become so attuned to Aziraphale’s shifts and changes through the years it had not occurred to him to really look all that closely. 

Newt knew better than to blow the horn or do anything so uncouth as honk, but he’d ducked his head out of Dick Turpin to gaze at the two imploringly. 

“Your husband would like a bit of your focus, I think,” Crowley said, nodding to him. “But thanks—er, for the head’s up.”

Anathema’s mouth was a straight line as she nodded back, one last indecipherable glance to the angel sitting primly in a lawn chair petting the former hellhound before she turned to join Newt. 

*

The child slept peacefully, a soft smile upon its lips as it curled around the ragged toy bear. Aziraphale wanted to stop himself, but he leaned over anyway and brushed a strand of black hair from its forehead, and where his fingers had touched the child deep boils burned away in the skin. In a flash, a jagged cut, the child was awake and crying, in horrible pain as the boils covered its body, peeling and bleeding, the bear thrown carelessly to the side as a helpless object of not much comfort. And Aziraphale was crying again, because he’d only wanted to help, but he didn’t know what he was helping, or how. All he knew how to do was to make it worse, make the child bleed, cause suffering, and _it will all be better now, this child will be in God’s hands now_ , he thought at the funeral as the blackness covered the day. _She will love this child. She wanted this child for herself, so she took it, and I have only helped, I have only helped the Plan, I have only helped._

“Angel. Angel!” A shake. “Aziraphale, wake up!” 

Aziraphale jolted into being in the coolness of an autumn morning, unaware he had drifted away from the light blue book which had fallen to its side in a rather damaging way to the spine, but there wasn’t much he could do about that now, because Crowley was on his knees next to the couch with fingers biting into his shoulder. 

“Nightmare, Angel?” he asked, a little desperately. 

“Nightmare,” Aziraphale agreed.

Crowley moved away, releasing the bruising hold. “All right then.” 

Aziraphale swiped at his face, felt the dampness there. 

“Well, you slept for three days, so that’ll do it,” Crowley said. “I mean, if you’re not used to sleeping, that is.” 

Aziraphale had slept much more than normal (given that normal was not at all) since Crowley had more or less moved into the bookshop with him. At first, it was easy to stay up reading while the demon did his usual slumbering, but more and more he found himself succumbing to the temptation of sloth. Still, three days was not usual. 

Crowley shifted, cast a sidelong look, and said, “What did you dream about?” with what was obviously very little hope it would be answered. 

“A child,” Aziraphale said, surprising himself and the demon both. “I made a child ill. I killed it.” 

The glasses had slipped down Crowley’s nose a bit, enough that Aziraphale could see the panic in his yellow eyes. 

“Well, it is really nothing, dear,” Aziraphale said hurriedly. “Just a dream.”

“No, no, if you want to talk—well, let’s talk. It’s just.” Crowley stood up, summoned a bottle of perfectly chilled white. “Maybe we should make this easier for both of us.” 

Aziraphale gazed doubtfully at him, sitting himself upright. “Crowley. This is really not necessary.” 

“If it’s time, I need to hear it. I need to know.” 

Aziraphale leaned forward and grasped Crowley’s biceps now, staring him in the eye. “Darling, you’re positively panicked at the thought. You can’t think I would be able to do this to you now.” 

Crowley’s face simply _crumpled_ and he wrenched back from Aziraphale’s hands. “No. No! What do you want from me, Angel? What am I supposed to do to help you? You want me to put on a brave face? Fine. I’ll do that.” He shoved his glasses back over his nose, burying the desperate yellow eyes behind the darkness. “I’ll be as clinical and removed as you need.”

“Now you’re just being silly. And, really, Crowley, why should you want to help—” He paused, and his eyes grew that faraway distant look again— “me?” he finished, faintly. 

*

Crowley had several misconceptions about his angel. Love is blind, and all. Not blind enough to think Aziraphale was a _perfect_ angel, but too blind to realize Aziraphale knew he wasn’t a perfect angel. 

Aziraphale understood his own hypocrisy and was distantly uncomfortable with it before the Hellfires—those had only served to irrevocably and intimately confront him with his own unique brand of horror. 

The second of Crowley’s misconceptions was not knowing Aziraphale’s potential (or his own, for that matter). An angel with the ability to change the fate of humankind with a well-intentioned and entirely off-script gesture like the flaming sword debacle put potentiality off the charts. In many very relevant ways, the fate of the entire world could be traced back directly to a mild angel who had once eaten crepes during the Reign of Terror. 

_Potential_ in itself is a weapon, not good or bad necessarily. It just is. And Aziraphale had a lot of it. 

The third and final of Crowley’s current misconceptions was that Aziraphale was not an angel of action. In fact, Aziraphale wasn’t very slothful; it’s just that his movements weren’t necessarily hurried. He was always, in fact, thinking, and perhaps worse—planning. 

*

“You’re not leaving again,” Crowley said, arms folded as he leaned against the doorjamb of the kitchen. “Last time you left, you threw yourself into a demonic pit of fire, so you can see how you’ve lost that privilege.” 

Aziraphale stopped halfway through the kitchen and turned back around to face him. The beige of his outfit stood out against the dark, but even though Crowley’s vision wasn’t quite dark vision, he could always make out a soft, faint glow around the angel. 

“Dear, I just need to clear my head.” 

“Clear it with me. We’ll go together.” 

The faint glow didn’t quite help Crowley make out the expression, but he could feel the tension in the room. The silence stretched far too long, Crowley tracing the outline of Aziraphale’s form over and over again, memorizing the rough and bleary sketch of it.

“You know,” Aziraphale began, his form far too still, “it was never me. I—I was never the good one.” 

“Angel.” His voice came out strangled. 

“It was you.” Aziraphale’s voice was a little strangled, as well. “You showed him—you showed him all the kingdoms. You—you couldn’t kill the children. I watched them drown, I watched them suffer, I watch them cry and plead. And all I could think was you, trying to foil Her plan by showing him all the kingdoms, and all these years I thought it’s just Crowley, trying to thwart, the wily demon, but—”

“Don’t say it.” 

Aziraphale took a step, and all of the sudden Crowley realized it was _him_ who had been cornered—he would never get a leg up on this angel—and his heart was in his throat, and he couldn’t breathe even though he would really like to. 

“You just wanted him to know there was another way. You saw all the horrible things and you thought you could help him.” 

“Yeah, well, those are the sorts of things you Fall for, Angel.”

Aziraphale took another step, and now Crowley could see the shine in his eyes. The kitchen wasn’t that big, after all. “I saw all the horrible things and I stood there and watched them.” 

“That is absurd,” Crowley spat. “I’ve watched _you_ digging people out of the rubble of fires, witnessing their last moments, singing them to their peace. Don’t you _dare_ put that on me. You are not a silent witness to Her plans.” 

“That’s just it, Crowley,” Aziraphale said in one exhaled breath. “I don’t know what Her plans are, but I hate them. I hate all of them. I hate this. I hate what I’ve seen. And even when I turned from Her, towards you, I was still willing to _murder a child_ and so that’s just me, isn’t it? No matter whose side I’m on, I’ll always be all right with suffering for the greater good, whatever someone else decides that is, and _God_ , I can’t _stand_ that about me.” And he buried his head in his hands with a shuddering breath. 

Crowley watched for a long moment and wanted to ask a million things along the lines of, _Why do you think so much?_ and _Why am I not enough?_ For Crowley, it was a simple matter, all this ennui about plans and the greater good. Just a few questions: Will it hurt Aziraphale? Yes? Don’t do it. Unless it’s funny and won’t hurt too much. 

He grasped Aziraphale’s wrists and pulled them from his face. “Hey. Hey, let’s not start with this or we’re going to spend our eternity trying to pull it apart.” 

Aziraphale was evidently not listening, because all he said was, “In the Hellfires, you know, all I saw was me,” and pulled his hands back to his face, his shoulders shaking now. 

_Why don’t you kill the kid?_ Crowley had asked. 

Oh, for fuck’s sake. 

It had never occurred to either of them, until the very end, that the child didn’t actually have to die, and they were simply torturing each other for no real reason. What idiots they were. How deserving of their punishment, so slotted into good and evil, punching every potential action with holes that would make it the others’ duty, and meanwhile this kid was figuring out how to open that box he’d been wedged into. 

Aziraphale was murmuring things now, but not really making sense. Just, “Everything I touch…” and “I’m so sorry…” Things like that, which seemed exhausting, really. Crowley steered him into a seat at the small table and turned the light on above the stove so that he could start some tea the old-fashioned way, sans-miracles, because that’s how Aziraphale liked it. 

But even with a cup of steaming, painstakingly-made tea straight from the whistling thing, Aziraphale hardly perked up. 

“You want to know what I saw?” Crowley said finally, falling into the chair across from Aziraphale. 

Aziraphale stared into his tea and nodded, barely perceptible.

“Me.”

Aziraphale was staring at him now. 

“It’s always yourself. Standing there alone. It’s a great trick of your creation, that you angels—that we can’t stand alone. Not without some great, ineffable, unknowable thing guiding our way. And so when you Fall, when you walk into the Hellfires, whatever it is that you did, Aziraphale, that’s always the thing that you have to face. A precarious, ethereal, barely-there image of yourself, trying to live and never knowing exactly how that’s supposed to be done, even if you can trick yourself into believing you do. But you know, these humans, these things you love so much, they do it every day. Holy water and Hellfire doesn’t touch them because they can’t be lost.” 

“We were so close, and now there’s this gulf between Her and us,” Aziraphale agreed. “I know I am no longer one of Her Host, just as the humans never were. I am just me now. And that would be fine, but it seems that ‘just me’—well, it’s not quite _good_ enough.” He folded his hands out on the wooden table. The stove light cast shadows between the fingers. “What I do and what I don’t do—it doesn’t match with what I know. And I could be led by Her or you, it doesn’t matter. I would still kill a child, it seems. For either of you. I would still watch it burn—”

“ _How_ can you think that?” Crowley demanded, slapping the table. “I asked you to run away to the stars with me, and instead you went down to the pits of Hell _twice_. You _died_ and then _came back_ here and refused to let me fall into what was turning out to be a very epic despair. _I stopped time and Satan because of you._ You never did _anything_ God or I asked you to do; you only demanded we get on your side or out of your way. You are an unstoppable force, Aziraphale, and absolutely impossible to say no to, and you know it. You decided we shouldn’t have an Armageddon, a thing that has been written into the very fabric of the universe since it began, and _so we didn’t_.” 

Aziraphale opened his mouth but said nothing. The dark blue of his eyes flickered with something shiny and difficult to understand. 

Crowley softened as he felt the air rush out of him. He wanted to reach across the table and pull the angel to him, but he couldn’t bring himself to move. “And if none of that matters to you,” he said, so softly now, “can’t you just know that it matters to me? That I think you are a being worth worshipping for the rest of my eternity?”

He didn’t know what Aziraphale saw in his own eyes that made him move then, but suddenly the angel’s chair was pushed back with a rude noise and he was perched on Crowley’s knee, arms wrapped tightly around Crowley’s neck, murmuring, “Yes, darling. Yes, I can know that.” 

*

In retrospect, it was completely absurd and entirely in-character that Crowley bought that shit. 

* 

Crowley woke with a start when he heard shuffling in the store that was _definitely not Aziraphale._ He was out of bed and in the midst of the shelves with a brief miracle, since he couldn’t be bothered wasting the precious few seconds to run there. Anathema startled to see him blink into existence in front of her, but composed herself hastily. 

“You,” he hissed. “What are you doing here? Where is the angel?”

Anathema straightened her glasses. “Ah, well, you see, that’s what I came to speak to you about.” 

It took Crowley several deep breaths and wasted seconds to not shove her back into the books and make her talk. He decided, ultimately, that when Aziraphale got back from wherever he had gone off to, he would be very upset about how he had treated the books.

“Talk,” he managed between gritted teeth. 

“The aura, the one I spoke to you about at my wedding—it appears that Aziraphale has noticed it weakening as well, and he came to me for help this morning. Of course I would give it to him, but the problem is that he fainted dead away on my doorstep and I really need more information about his condition in order to—”

Crowley grabbed up the collar of her ridiculous dress. _“What?”_

“He’s quite safe with Newt,” Anathema assured him, nonplussed at the demon nearly lifting her from her feet. “I bussed over here, but it’s very late in the day now and if you drove us back—”

It was getting harder and harder not to resort to violence. “Why are you humans so _useless?_ ” He released his hold and stomped past her, not sparing a backwards glance to see if she was following. “Get on with you! Don’t make me wait!” 

*

Aziraphale was eating ice cream and having a pleasant discussion with Newt about the evolution of vanilla beans when the demon and Anathema stormed into the little cottage in Tadfield. 

“Crowley!” Aziraphale said. “I wasn’t expecting you and Anathema to get here until—”

“Can it, Angel,” Crowley said, storming over to grab his chin and looking him square in the eye, then around, as if he was highly suspicious of his face. “The girl here said you fainted. Angels don’t faint. That’s just embarrassing, really. What’s going on with this aura thing she’s been on about? Why can’t you manifest anything stronger than this?” He gestured sketchily in Aziraphale’s general direction. 

It wasn’t that Crowley didn’t notice Aziraphale’s aura, but it was much the same way lobsters boiled to death—he had simply gotten used to Aziraphale’s diminishing aura, and perhaps realized far too late they were both being boiled to death—or well, something, that metaphor wasn’t exactly right. 

“Well, you know I haven’t exactly been myself as of late,” Aziraphale said, “so I thought, who better to go to than the witch with that wonderful book of Agnes Nutter’s prophecies?”

“Occultist,” Anathema corrected. “But I burned that book, so we’ll have to try something else.” 

At this, Aziraphale felt all the blood drain from his face. He squeezed the spoon for his ice cream so tightly in his hand that it bent, and he barely acknowledged Crowley peeling his fingers away from it before he hurt himself. 

_“What?”_

Anathema’s eyes widened. “Well, I burned it. Surely, you can understand extricating yourself from the claws of fate, and I’m pretty sure I have some other tricks—”

“But why would you _burn_ it? You could have just not _read_ it. And given it to me. That’s so dramatic and—and—and _final_.” He was horrified to find angry tears in his eyes and his breath was coming much too harshly. 

Crowley, who didn’t seem to know which side he should be on anymore, fit carefully by Aziraphale’s and grasped his shoulders. “Breathe with me, Angel. Breathe. Deep, in through the nose, out through the mouth.” 

“I think it’s possible he’s had too much sugar,” Anathema said to Newt, who was standing away from the angel now. “Perhaps some water?”

Newt gathered the bowl and spoon from Aziraphale and took them both obediently to the sink, then returned with a glass of water. 

“I don’t want _water_!” Aziraphale wailed. 

“Calm down, Angel. Remember? Breaths? Through the nose?” The demon was surely remembering the Alexandria incident; he was panicking as well, and that was what finally caused Aziraphale to take a breath at last and sit back. 

“Okay,” he said, flattening his hands on his trousers and flexing the fingers. “Okay. That’s fine. The book is gone. That’s okay.” 

Anathema nodded slowly. “It’s okay,” she repeated, taking a step closer. “I don’t think we need the book to help your aura, anyway. Angels can’t be so different than humans, and from what Crowley said on our way here, I think a human approach to things might help you anyway.” 

Aziraphale glared at her, tried to turn the gears in his head to forcibly accept help from a book burner. He compartmentalized that in some overstuffed drawer in his brain full of horrible tragedies and then took a second breath, smiling. “All right, dear,” he said. “Let’s try it your way.” 

*

Crowley watched Anathema through the window; she fumbled a crystal she pulled from her dress pocket, then showed it to Aziraphale, who waited patiently on the bench outside in the garden. 

“Yeah, this isn’t going to work,” he said, then peered up at the setting sun. “Now much sunlight to be had out there anyway, is there?”

Newt frowned, watching his wife over Crowley’s shoulder. “I think if anyone can help him, it would be Anathema.” 

Crowley rolled his eyes. “You’re too besotted to see anything.” 

Newt tilted his head like he was about to say something, but didn’t. 

Suddenly, light burst forth from the garden, so intense and horrible Crowley had to cower under the table, folded up on his knees, face firmly searching the darkness of the tiles. “What is that?” he shouted, muffled, at Newt, whom he assumed hadn’t moved at all, the stupid man. “Is that from the crystal thing?”

“No… no, it appears to be coming from Aziraphale.” Newt’s voice was slightly hushed, as if awed. 

“Aziraphale is doing that?” Crowley lifted his face and hissed at the light flooding into the kitchen. “Why? Can you tell him to stop?”

The light was angled in such a way through the tiny window above the sink that Crowley was well-protected from it under the table. And it wasn’t really as if Aziraphale’s light would kill him. He’d been around it before. He wasn’t a vampire. It was just that it was so bright it felt like his eyes would bleed. 

“I don’t think so,” Newt said, turning back to him. “Listen. I don’t think he’s okay.” 

“Oh, for fuck’s—all right, I’m going.” Crowley ducked out under the beam of light and made his way to the front door. When it was open, he nearly dived under the table again; instead, he simply hissed and moved forward, shielding his already shaded eyes as he moved up towards Aziraphale. “Angels can’t be that different from humans, can they?” he said bitterly to Anathema as he passed her. 

“Well, his aura has certainly returned,” she returned simply. 

Aziraphale was seated, bare feet in the grass, head turned upwards towards the fading sunlight. White light poured from his eyes, his nose, his mouth, his ears. The skin of his hands and feet glowed eerily, far too heavenly-looking for Crowley to touch.

But Crowley was a dumb demon, and when he fell to his knees in front of the angel, he placed his hand on Aziraphale’s anyway. He had to grit his teeth against the burn of it, but he held on. “Aziraphale,” he said. “Angel, can you hear me?”

Aziraphale’s head moved down to look at Crowley like stone. The white eyes _were_ too much to bear, and Crowley felt tears gathering in his own as he looked down. “My Crowley,” Aziraphale said, and his voice was gentle in that familiar way, and yet echoed strangely. “My dear.”

Crowley’s mouth was dry. Aziraphale leaned forward to cup his chin, and he felt the hiss of pain there as well, but a warmth as well that he couldn’t deny he loved with every aching, broken part of his demonic body. 

“This is intense, even for you,” he managed. 

“I understand,” Aziraphale said. 

“O—Oh, good, good. Well, that’s fine then.” Crowley paused, feeling the sting on his chin and palm. “Do you—care to explain? Or, at least to turn off the lights?”

Aziraphale smiled, but Crowley could only tell out of the corner of his eye because he still couldn’t look directly at him, and the light spilling from his mouth was wild and unconstrained. He tilted his head and brought the hand on his chin to Crowley’s forehead, and all at once Crowley saw it, the impossible things, like

\--the first day of rest, when the world was so small and new, and the creatures so strange and delightful, and a demon peeked through the shaded leaves to see an angel marveling at the fruit on the trees, and

\--a sand-swept stone structure, the first of its kind, spilling laughing children from within while storm clouds gathered, and

\--the cross, that one, long before anyone ever hung on it, because Crowley didn’t have to be an angel to divine the suffering that poor carpenter would soon be subject to, and

\--the laughter of a mad emperor and the short, silent, stolen moments of two oracles who found in each other more delight than they’d ever find in a dream, and

\--the death of a child, and then another, and then another, as empires rose and fell based on the swords of heroes searching for a piece of eternity they’d never find, and

\--the streets littered with plague-addled bodies dumped unceremoniously in mass graves, and the tired crying of a mother as she lays her last babe to sleep forever and waits for her own, and

\--the shining light through the stain glass of a church window upon a weary crowd, and

\--words, all the words in the scrolls and books and speeches, so many voices ringing out waiting to find something to latch onto, somebody who will understand, some difference they can make with the configuration of letters into words into sentences that sometimes, rarely, leap towards a meaning, and

“Crowley!” 

\--the softness of a hand reaching towards his across the table, a smile that simply lights up everything it touches, a voice that forgives, eyes that make him believe love exists when he’d given up on the notion so long ago, and

“Crowley!” 

Fingers latched onto those on his forehead and pulled him apart from the angel. Without even seeing, Crowley grasped forward, reaching again at the loss, the darkness, the pit in his stomach wanting to be filled again with it—

“You’re going to kill him!” 

He still couldn’t see. He felt his chest heaving, though, nearly going concave with the effort, and he was still reaching. 

“Get them apart! They’re killing each other!” 

No—no, Aziraphale couldn’t hurt him. Aziraphale wouldn’t. He knew that now, even though there was no air to be had, even though he couldn’t see, even though he couldn’t even feel now that Aziraphale’s hand was gone from his head. 

“Please!” he cried out blindly, still groping forward even though small hands were pushing him back. “Please, don’t take him from me—don’t take this from me—”

“Nobody’s taking anything, Crowley, just—just _rest_ a moment. Close your eyes. Calm down.” 

That was news, that his eyes were open, because there was still nothing to be seen. And worse, he couldn’t hear Aziraphale. 

“What are you doing to him? _Where is he?_ ”

“He’s fine.” Warm hands groped his face, but they weren’t his angel’s. “Crowley. Close your eyes. God, close your eyes. He’s fine, I promise he’s fine.” Fingers touched his eyelids and he _wailed_ without really meaning to, but suddenly it was quiet and he was—missing. Boiling, perhaps. Like a lobster waiting to be eaten. 

*

Aziraphale stared at the ceiling, carding hands over and over through Crowley’s hair, murmuring an apology once in a while, little good it would do to someone who couldn’t hear it. 

“It’s not your fault,” Newt said from the wooden seat with the green cushion that sat up against the opposite wall of the bed. 

“I know, my dear,” Aziraphale answered, a bit mechanically. “I know.” 

“See, I don’t think you do.” 

Aziraphale shifted his gaze to the anxious man who looked far too awkward to be doling out any advice to ethereal beings. 

“I mean to say, Anathema said your aura was deteriorating and that if you hadn’t found some help for it, you would have been left without one. And from what I hear, that’s not good for any lifeform. And Crowley asked you to explain, and you only shared what you could…” He trailed off, averting his gaze from Aziraphale now. “I just don’t think you should blame yourself. Either of you. You try very hard and you don’t always get it right, but sometimes you do.” 

At times like this, Aziraphale wasn’t sure what Anathema saw in Newt, but he let it slide because he and Crowley were taking up the newly-wedded couple’s bed. 

Newt disappeared to find where Anathema bedded down for the night and Aziraphale let the silence, the darkness, encompass him. 

The demon was still unconscious on his chest, not breathing, but that was okay. Aziraphale could still sense him. All was not lost. 

“Well, he was right about one thing, darling. I did not get this right.” He gentled his touch, turned to stroke down Crowley’s arm. “I’m not sure why I thought it would be.” 

Because he needed to share it, Aziraphale realized. Because alone that divine sense of purpose eluded him, but together it might have been a revelation. Because alone all he saw was more images, more hurt, more pain, but together, it might have made sense, this whole human thing, from the garden to the end, and after. 

The golden light had filled him with such peace, a cleansing of fire, but demons were forged in fire. To take that from them was to burn out who they were. Aziraphale had never wanted that. He had only wanted to understand what they did together. Made together. Was it one more joke of the Almighty that what he wanted would only kill them both?

Perhaps. Or perhaps it was merely a game he was losing, badly. 

Crowley slept for almost two months. At some point, Aziraphale used up several small miracles, white lies, and half a bottle of rum to get them home. They’d have to fetch the Bentley later, and Crowley wouldn’t like that at all, but he hadn’t really given him much of a choice. 

Aziraphale read, and read, and read. He refused to sleep, in case he missed something. And he didn’t doze off thinking about children pock-marked or boiled at his hand. He didn’t think of his face in the fires. He thought about the lines of philosophy written by humans trying to make sense of their lives. 

_The gods envy us. They envy us because we’re mortal, because any moment may be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed._

Aziraphale looked at Crowley’s sleeping form and thought, _You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again._

And then he let himself cry—deep, hysterical sobs that made him clutch his chest—because Crowley wasn’t there with him at the moment he understood it and now he never would.

*

Every damn part of him hurt, like his skin had been rubbed raw. He blinked and felt dimly relieved when he saw the canopied bed around him in the lamp light, then annoyed because he couldn’t find his sunglasses. 

“Crowley?” 

Aziraphale stood at the door, tea in hand, head tilted curiously, lips pinched worriedly. 

“Yeah?” Crowley’s voice was raw, too, and he winced at the sound of it, clearing his throat. “How long was I out? Where’s my glasses?”

Aziraphale handed him a pair from his pocket without looking away from his face. “Six weeks.”

“Just been carrying those around?” 

“Yes, in fact.” 

Well, that was something that hurt worse than raw skin. He shifted himself upwards on the bed. “Are you all right, Angel?”

Aziraphale’s chin trembled. “Fine. I’m just fine.” 

There were countless stacks of books next to the cushioned armchair that had been dragged to the bedside, along with several tea-stained cups and saucers. Crowley placed the glasses Aziraphale had handed him on the bedside table. He didn’t think it was fair somehow, what with the angel all trembling emotion and barely-contained hurt. 

“I’m sorry,” Crowley tried, nearly choking on the apology. “I don’t know why I couldn’t take it, but what I saw—”

“Don’t apologize,” Aziraphale said. “You have nothing to apologize for.” 

“What I saw was—”

Aziraphale’s eyes filled with tears now. “I know,” he whispered. 

“It was so beautiful, Angel. You’re beautiful.”

Aziraphale sniffed, turned away, brushed at the liquid in his eyes threatening to spill. 

“I’m sorry,” Crowley said softly. “I really am. I wanted to be there with you.” 

“We’re just two impossibly old beings with far too many puzzle pieces.” Aziraphale tried for a smile and failed. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess there’s that.” Crowley stood up, crossed the room, and folded the angel into his arms like it was the easiest thing in the world. Aziraphale’s hand came up to clutch at the collar of his hopelessly-wrinkled shirt and his shoulders tensed with restraint. “You won’t give up, will you?” Crowley asked gently, the lingering burn on his palms warming Aziraphale's back. “We can keep trying.” 

And Aziraphale took a breath and relaxed his forehead into Crowley’s chest, because together they don’t always get it right, but sometimes they do.


End file.
